Housing Completions

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GUEST OBSERVER
The announcement by the Minister for Housing and Planning, Anthony Roberts, that housing completions have reached a record high is good news for housing supply but the approvals trend is downwards.
The record 34,121 housing completions for metropolitan Sydney is good for housing supply.
This is the highest figure since May 1971 when 35,886 homes were completed. The high completion numbers come from planning approvals from two years ago so it is important to also monitor current approvals.
The large component of high density apartments in the current housing completion numbers at 72 percent indicates a continuing swing to urban living in locations close to jobs and transport nodes. It is important that this trend continues but the Urban Taskforce is concerned that the Greater Sydney Commission’s District Plans will make it more difficult to develop housing in urban centres and on industrial land.
The housing approval numbers for Sydney have dropped from a high in September 2016 of 57,723 year to date to 54,722 in December 2016. Our concern is that this drop of 3,000 housing approvals seems to be a continuing trend which is supported by the January Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for housing approvals.
To enable a continuing pipeline of new housing for Sydney the Urban Taskforce has asked its members for details of large housing projects that are caught up in the planning system. We have received details of over 40 projects representing around 40,000 new homes that are locked in the planning system that could be fast tracked.
Today’s strong housing completion numbers are heading in the right direction but they are still below the average needed over 20 years according to Department of Planning projections. We really need over 40,000 new homes annually over the next few years to balance the previous lean years.
The NSW Planning system is seen by many industry experts to be slower and more complex than that in Victoria or Queensland and the new Planning Minister has an opportunity to simplify the system to ensure a continuing pipeline of housing approvals comes on line.
Chris Johnson is chief executive officer of property development industry group Urban Taskforce and can be contacted <a href="https://www.urbantaskforce.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=97&amp;Itemid=126#.Vdaart55dFI" target="_blank">here</a>.
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Record housing completions is good news but the trend is downwards: Chris Johnson

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EXPERT OBSERVATION
The record number of completions of 40,009 new homes in the year to February 2018 is good news for housing supply with strong population growth.
The 40,009 housing completions are above the required 20 year average of 36,250 per year which is good news.
The approvals for these homes came a few years ago at the peak of the housing boom and it is good to see that the combination of government policies and the hard work of the development industry is paying off.
The big change from earlier years on housing production has been the rise in the proportion of new homes that are apartments which are close to 70% of the total.
A decade ago detached houses and apartments were approved at similar numbers but now apartments and multi-unit dwellings are in the majority.
Changes to the planning system have also helped with the establishment of planning panels for large projects and the increase in complying development approval streams.
Most apartment projects are larger scale projects so the role of planning panels in assessing these will continue to be important.
While the housing completions have reached record levels the approvals are dropping.
In February 2017 there were 58,774 approvals compared to the 51,994 housing approvals in February 2018. This is an 11.5% drop and it appears that this will go down further.
Clearly the housing development industry will go through peaks and troughs but it is important that government policies continue to support both strong approvals and strong completions and do not add additional cost to development or add red tape.
The Urban Taskforce is keen to work with the NSW Government to ensure a consistent flow of new homes for Sydney.
CHRIS JOHNSON is the Urban Taskforce CEO.
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Housing Completions

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